1963 Oldsmobile Starfire

I bought this car back in March and posted some on the Oldsmobile forums but have decided to start a thread here since this is where I spend most of my time, I've done the same with my 57 Lincoln. This was an Ebay car and the thing that clinched the sale was that the owner delivered the car to my door in exchange for a plane ticket home and expenses. He drove it 800 miles from Colorado City to McKinney Texas and probably saved me at least $1000 in shipping cost. The car looked great and ran well but when I started checking it out I found that he had been a very brave man to make that drive. The brakes were worn and leaking, the front end and suspension were one step from collapse, and the bottom of the car was covered with oil from engine and transmission leaks! I did the brakes myself with all new linings, hoses, wheel and master cylinders, and turned drums. I farmed the rest of the work out to a shop that I have dealt with for years, I supplied most of the parts and he did the labor. As it always goes, my original scope of work got bigger as he discovered other things that needed attention so he had the car for more than four months and did the following:

• All new heavy duty springs and gas shocks
  
• All new front end bushings, ball joints, outer tie rod ends, and sway bar bushings / links.
  
• New front crankshaft seal and fuel pump gasket.
  
• New front motor mount
  
• New transmission tailshaft bearing and seal
  
• New universal joints
  
• New rear axle pinion seal
  
• Front wheel alignment
  
• New rubber fuel line hoses.
  
• New transmission cooler to radiator hoses.
  

I picked the car up this last saturday, what a difference! It rides, handles, and stops like the muscle car it is and brought back many memories from the good old days. There are also no more oil puddles on the floor! I will take some up-to-date photos this weekend and post them here and will keep this thread up-to-date as I do additional work to make this my main cruiser.

On friday I drove the car to Rich's Performance Muffler in Wylie, TX to get an estimate on an exhaust system. As usual it's going to need more than I thought, I'll have mostly a new system. I'm going with two stock type mufflers without resonators and slightly larger pipe. I need to adjust the rear bumper height before I go back and install new rubber trim pads. Here are some new photos I took yesterday.

Don, OMG, what a great looking ride. Keep us posted. What a good find, she is looking good.

Don what a lucky guy you are!! Can ANYTHING of the last few years compare?? I think not.

Ben

Neat car and cool photos.

I finally got to adjust the rear bumper height last week, it was mounted almost an inch too low and actually covered part of the tailpipe openings. I took it to the muffler shop on friday and picked it up tonight. We increased the pipe size to 2 1/4 and used two large stock type mufflers but no resonators. He also added an H pipe connecting the headpipes and some chrome tips. He built the tailpipes to clear a set of wide wheels and tires which I will eventually use on the car. He was able to reuse most of the stock hangers except for the rear ones. What a difference! I had told him I was looking for a stock muscle car sound like the 67 Plymouth GTX 440 I used to have and he nailed it, just enough sound but no rap or drone. If you are in the north Texas area I recommend Rich's Performance Muffler in Wylie, TX.

Time for another update. When I got this car it came with the original 14" wheels and wheel covers but a lousy set of 215-75-14 Kumho narrow-whitewall radials. I felt they were too small for the car plus one of them was damaged from rubbing against a mis-installed tailpipe when the seller drove the car to my house. My original plan was to mount a set of 17" Impala SS alloys with wide tires which I had stored but the original wheel lugs were not long enough. For awhile I thought about replacing all the lugs but in the end I decided I wanted to leave them. I also had a set of 15" cop wheels from a 95 Caprice with 2 good 235-70-15 BFG T/A white letter radials so I decided I would go for the look I had on a few cars back in the 70s. I bought 2 more matching tires and mounted them up. I thought I would just buy a set of period Olds wheel covers but quickly found that they used all 14" in those days. I wound up using 1960 Buick covers, one of my favorite designs and no Buick emblems to worry about. Yeah, I know, its not original, but I like it.

Don, she sure looks nice. What a great look. Bet that she gets a lot of looks going down the road. Great work!

I like it ,Too, Don. Making it youe own is the way to go.

Ben

I finally had the opportunity to take some photos of both the cars together, there are some more on my Lincoln thread.

I retired on March 30 and will have more time for my cars so hope to update this thread more often. I did spend some time on the Olds doing a couple things on the list. First was replacing the rear motor mounts which attach to the the bellhousing on the 394. The old ones were original and oil soaked and the passenger side was cracked which made it loose in reverse. Getting the old ones off was easy but putting in the new ones was not. My wife helped with the hydraulic jack and I finally got all the bolts to line up. That was a dirty enough job for one day but I left the car on the jacks for a few days, a luxury I seldom had when I was working.

Yesterday I came back to the job and changed the transmission fluid and filter. When I got the car I was told the transmission had been rebuilt about 3000 miles previously but the seller did not know how long ago it had been done. I had done a quick fluid change when I first got the car but could not find a replacement filter. Recently Fatsco had the filters reproduced and I ordered one. I dropped the pan and the trans looked very clean inside. There was some sediment in the bottom of the pan but no brass or aluminum piles or chunks indicating heavy wear. When I first looked at the old filter still mounted I thought my new filter was the wrong one, the old filter had openings in both the front and back while the new one only had openings in the back. Once I got the old filter off and looked at it closely I realized that someone had actually cut the bottom front of the filter housing off with a hacksaw! I don't know if this was some type of performance modification or if it was a crude way of opening up a plugged filter rather than replacing it, but I've never seen anything like it before, check out the pics.

My next project on this car will be to rebuild the rag joint between the steering box and column. A pretty big job as I will have to remove the whole steering column!

Might it be easier to remove the steering box from the front end to replace the rag joint ? It took me an 2 hours or so to r & r that on my 64 Riv once I had it up on jackstands.

Bill, I thought of that but I have a non-tilt column, there is no disconnect flange between the rag joint and the steering shaft, only between the joint and the steering box. I'll need the column out to get at the joint enough to rebuild it.

I love what you have done with the car. My vote though is to go with the narrow whitewalls and original hub caps. I had one of these new and it was never a "racer" look car. Good luck and thanks for taking the time to share.

Regards,

Rob Troxel

I spent a little more time on this car replacing the vacuum advance diaphragm. I bought a new Accel adjustable unit which was easy to install and adjust. As part of the install I had to remove a number of vacuum hoses so I checked all of them and wound up replacing a number of cracked and hardened hoses which may have been original. I think I may have had additional vacuum leaks as the idle quality has improved and the A/C system is working better. Before, I had noticed that airflow seemed to stop under hard acceleration but now it works fine in all conditions. I think the vacuum holding the mix doors in position was being compromised by a leak. I took this car out for a long drive on Tuesday to meet a friend for breakfast and it has become a really nice driver. The only significant things left to do are the steering rag joint and replacement of all the weatherstripping.

This car has pretty nice driver quality black urethane paint which the previous owner rubbed out himself, but it has a few unfinished spots, fine scratches, and waterspots. I tried polishing it by hand but hardly made a dent. With the help of the local English Color store where I got the touchup paint for my Lincoln, I got a DeWalt variable speed buffer, Automagic Risk Free compound, polish, and wax and a foam pad for each. My only experience with machine buffing was in the dark ages doing lacquer with a wool bonnet so I was a little nervous. I started slowly with the trunk lid a few days ago and today I did the hood. This equipment works great, I'm using the lowest 600 RPM setting, it polishes very well without edge burning and I'm very happy with the results. I'm also removing some of the trim as I go and doing a little touchup where needed. One step at a time!

Egad! Is that the same car??! Nice!

I've been working on my Lincoln and haven't done anything to the Starfire for awhile except drive it. Now I am finally going to rebuild the steering column rag joint, it was worn out to the point of causing slop in the steering. I'm also going to clean and lubricate the driver's power seat mechanism and check under the dash. Today I removed the drivers seat, carpeting, and the steering column. It is a non-tilt column so the rag joint is riveted directly to the steering shaft with a splined joint only on the steering gear side, necessitating the column removal. That's as far as I got but I was pleasantly surprised to see that the carpet was factory original and the floor pan underneath is almost perfect, still in red primer with no rust. The sewn-on rubber and aluminum mats kept the carpet from wearing and it looks like it never got wet, first GM car I've ever owned that I can say that!

Yesterday I got to work on the steering column rag joint. The rubber disc had deteriorated to the point of cracking resulting in almost an inch of play. The way it was assembled is a good example of 1960's planned obsolesence, the joint is held together by what are essentially big rivets, the only way to get it off was with a cutoff wheel. With everything cleaned up I installed a bolt on rebuild kit with a new disc and got the column back in today. I still need to play with the driver's seat, hopefully tomorrow.

I took Friday off but worked on the driver's seat today. It's a 4-way tilt power seat and the mechanism operated very slowly and it seemed as if it wouldn't go back far enough so I wanted to check it out. I was pleased to see that, like the floors, the seats had never been exposed to water or much humidity and had no rust. I found one problem right away, one of the four bolts holding the power track to the seat frame had loosened up and fallen out, blocking the track from sliding. I removed the whole power assembly and cleaned/greased/oiled it up, then mounted it in the car to check the operation. It moved smoothly through all four directions of travel. I reinstalled the carpet and kick panel trim then installed the seat assembly after some upholstery cleaning. The seat now moves faster and quieter and I now have some additional legroom!

Of course we all know the rule of old cars - if you fix one problem, another one will immediately pop up to replace it. Well, it happened to me - I started the car to take a ride and smelled gas. I pulled off the air cleaner and the carburetor is leaking, wonderful. I'll either have to rebuild it myself or find someone to do it, just what I did not need right now. Can anyone recommend a Rochester 4 jet expert in the DFW area?

I checked around regarding having my carburetor rebuilt but found the cost ranged from $275 to $450, which included "cosmetic" restoration. That was way more than I wanted to spend and did not need the cosmetic part so I decided I would at least try doing it myself first. Like everything else I do it took longer than I expected. Since the carb was coming off I originally planned to combine that with replacing my heater control valve and also clean and repaint the top of the engine. I put plastic down over the garage floor and totally covered the car. I pulled off the carb, it appeared to be leaking from the front where the air horn met the carb body. I had also started to notice a worsening bog when I hit the gas, especially when cold. I took it apart and cleaned everything with carb cleaner and air pressure but it was actually quite clean inside. I reassembled everything with new gaskets and checked all the adjustments, the float levels were a bit off, especially on the secondary side. I changed out the heater valve and was lucky that nothing was rusted too bad, the bolts came out clean. Right then life got in the way and I had to cancel the repainting and wrap things up, put the carb on and started it up AND IT STILL LEAKED! I was pissed and had to park it until this week. When I got back to it I noticed that it was leaking from the fuel inlet fitting, the one thing I HAD NOT removed from the carb. I pulled it off, replaced the gasket and put it back but it still leaked. I pulled it again, applied Permatex High-Tack to all the threads, and that finally did it, leak free. Wrapped it up today and readjusted the idle then took it for a ride, what a difference! It now idles smoother and slower and it positively JUMPS when you hit the pedal, I think I must have had an accelerator pump issue since I got it. This was also the first time driving it with the the new steering rag joint, it handles much better with no wander or play in the wheel. This car is now a real pleasure to drive and I will be using it much more than I have in the past. Both of these repairs cost me a total of less than $50.00 out of pocket and I must say they are very high on the bang-for-the-buck scale, wish I would have done them sooner.

You are a brave man Don. I'm sure I'd have a few parts left over if I tried that. I didn't even attempt the one barrel of my car.

You are a brave man Don. I'm sure I'd have a few parts left over if I tried that. I didn't even attempt the one barrel of my car.

Pat, I've done quite a few over the years and have had my share of screwups. In my opinion the worst to work on are later GM Quadrajets, they all leak internally even when you seal up the well plugs and they almost never work 100% unless they are new. The 4GC is a pretty good carb because of the cast iron base plate and its construction is fairly simple. One trick I learned, always take the carb apart and put it back together the same day if possible so you remember where everything goes. I also always try to have a shop manual to refer to in addition to that little hard to read instruction sheet that comes with the rebuild kit!

Well done Don. Such an awesome car. I like the fact that the Roadrunner on your bench was inspecting the opened up carb. You 2 are quite a team! :-)

Chuck

Well done Don. Such an awesome car. I like the fact that the Roadrunner on your bench was inspecting the opened up carb. You 2 are quite a team! :-)

Chuck[/quote

Thanks Chuck, I didn't realize he was in the shot, he must be good luck. It's pretty sad that I have a 2 foot by 8 foot workbench but there is so much junk on it that I can only clear that small space for that big carburetor! One of these days I need to do a serious cleaning and move a lot of that stuff to either the Ebay pile or the trash bin. (how many times have I said that?)

I can't believe its been almost a year since I have posted anything about this car! Two things responsible, the main one was the acquisition of the 34 Packard, but the other was that I haven't had any real trouble with this car and have just been enjoying it. As we all know there is no such thing as a "finished" car project and this 63 is no exception, I still have a to-do list with a number of unchecked items. Now that our hot weather is moderating a little I've decided to do some underhood things that I probably should have done sooner.

The first and foremost is getting my power steering pump rebuilt, as long as I've owned the car it has groaned when turning the wheels at idle speed. This has gotten worse lately and now includes momentary loss of assist, so I'm sending it to Lares Corporation. The other item is replacement of the alternator. The previous owner had an incorrect "one-wire" alternator crudely installed which has a single groove pulley. My car has factory A/C which normally uses two belts to turn the compressor, however with the incorrect alternator only one belt can be installed. The result has been a slipping belt and premature wear. I had a correct alternator built by Powermaster with a dual pulley and the original three wire hookup with an external regulator like original.

It's going to take a couple of weeks to get the steering pump done so while I'm waiting I'll also do some sorely needed underhood cleanup and spray can detailing. I started today by taping a 9' by 12' drop cloth to the floor and positioning the car, after I took the photos I covered the whole car to keep dust and overspray off. I drained and removed the pump without spilling too much fluid and will ship it to Lares tomorrow. I'll also need to visit my friends at NAPA to get a new voltage regulator, belts, and some new hose for the steering line.

I shipped the PS pump to Lares and they received it yesterday so my fingers are crossed that it will rebuild OK. Today I started stripping stuff off the engine to get it ready to clean and paint, the side with the A/C compressor will be a challenge. I did remember I wanted to check something and I was very glad I did. If you follow this thread you'll know I've had a lot of problems with vacuum leaks on this car, most of which were traced down to bad hoses and diaphragms which I replaced. Even after that I still noticed noise from the underdash A/C diaphragms when I would accelerate, as if the doors were moving. I knew this was a symptom of either a vacuum leak or inadequate vacuum supply.

Another problem I have recently noticed was an increase in braking pedal effort, not all the time but noticeable in a hard stop. I did a full brake job on this car when I first got it but had the master cylinder replaced with a new one by a shop when I had all the suspension work done. With the above symptoms I began to wonder if they had forgotten to install the O-ring seal on the master where it enters the booster, I had made this common mistake years ago on my Riviera but remembered it having a much worse effect on pedal effort. I pulled the master today and found that yes, they did forget the O-ring, but they had wrapped the master with some kind of close cell foam to seal it instead. It must have partially sealed the booster but had quickly degraded and fell apart when I touched it. I ordered the correct flat O-ring from "Booster" Dewey, hopefully this will solve both my brake and vacuum problems!

My "small project" continues to grow, sound familiar? I have not had cooling problems with this car but I have had some seepage from the far side of the top tank and looking inside I saw a lot of blockage in the tubes. My past experience with radiator "flush and repair" jobs has been poor and after I heard the preposterous prices to recore a copper radiator today I decided to get a new radiator. The one I ordered is a copper / brass stock replacement as far as size and appearance but has a high-efficiency core with more tubes than stock, advertised as cooling better than high performance aluminum cores. I'm also going to replace the lower flex hose with a correct molded one. I pulled the old radiator and shroud today, an added benefit will be that I can now see and reach things not possible with the radiator in place which will help my detailing. I'll post some "after photos later.

Why is the fan painted green, I wonder?

Why is the fan painted green, I wonder?

It's not painted, it's an aftermarket fiberglass fan and that's the color of the 'glass. I think it will be black when I'm done.

I take it the fiberglass fan has more blades that a factory stock steel one? Does it also have variable pitch? Did you put this fan on, or a previous owner?

It was on the car when I got it. The original fan was probably a thermostatic clutch type but I have no idea how they compare. I think one of the selling points was that the blades flex with rpm, improving air flow, I think one of the brands was Flex-a-lite or something like that.

Now that the radiator and fan have been removed I can see the front of the engine clearly for the first time. One thing I noticed was that the fuel hoses were poorly, and dangerously, routed. The factory A/C cars have a 3/8" fuel supply and a 1/4" fuel return with steel lines running along the frame rail but rubber hoses connecting to the tank in the rear and fuel pump in front. I had these hoses replaced when I first got the car but they cut them too short in the front, leaving the supply hose pulled at a sharp angle to the inlet fitting and the return hose actually rubbing against the upper control arm. They weren't damaged but that is pretty dangerous. Today I extended both hoses with splice fittings which put them back in factory position and out of harm's way. Tomorrow I'll start backflushing the block in preparation for the new radiator.

By the way, the fiberglass fan is the Flex-a Lite brand, the name is cast into the pulley spacer block.

Back again, I've spent most of the last week on other things but I did keep going a bit on this project. I did flush the engine out, that was a comedy of errors. I took out the thermostat and bypassed the heater core then hooked up my drain hose to the top hose outlet and my flush gun to the lower hose going into the water pump. The car is sitting way back in my tandem garage so the drain hose ended in a bucket far from the door. Water and air were connected to the flush gun so I started with the water, as soon as it worked its way down to the bucket out it flopped shooting all over the floor. This didn't really surprise me although it shot residual antifreeze all under the Packard which was still in the garage. With the water running I tapped the air pressure lever which popped the flush gun out of the hose and neatly drenched me face first! I then installed the clamp which I had forgotten and kept going. I got plenty of dirt out with all the water but did not see any hard chunks. Needless to say I spent more time hosing down and drying the garage floor than I did actually flushing the motor.

I received the master cylinder O-ring from Booster Dewey and installed it. I also got the rebuilt power steering pump back from Lares. The rest of last week was spent cleaning and degreasing the underhood area. I use Super Clean which is a water based solvent, spray it on, leave it a few minutes and wash the residue off with water. Works very well. I wire brushed the old paint and finished up with an overall wipe with wax and grease remover. I start painting tomorrow, the silver valve covers will be first, then the red engine, and all the surrounding black last. An awful lot of masking involved, I use a lot of aluminum foil because its easy to form around things and you can reuse it. I still need to get more masking tape tomorrow!

I have enjoyed reading your thread from begining to end. I have owned a number of Oldsmobiles and love them all. What a beautiful car you have. I fell in love with Oldsmobiles when I was 10. My parents bought a new 66 Dynamic 88 with a 425. I could always talk my father in to flooring it which tossed us back in our seats. Been a fan ever since.

Thanks Flivver, I have owned more Oldsmobiles in my life than any other make. They really got it right with a combination of luxury and performance.

I flushed my block and had radiator cleaned-i havent yet but heard of putting a pantyhose (im going to use a paint strainer)at top inlet of radiator to catch junk out of block.suppose to check often and remove for long distance drives.just a thought.T.Nugent roa 12969...

The pantyhose works, a company called Gano also makes inline filters you can install in the hose, even a clear one that lets you check it without removing the hose. I won't need to do that on this car but I may have to on my Packard.

I've been masking and painting for three days and am finally done. I wanted to take advantage of good weather, its supposed to rain tomorrow. Wednesday I painted the silver valve covers plus cleaned and painted all the removed parts and fasteners. Thursday I remasked everything and painted the engine red and started remasking again to do the black engine compartment but had to wait for the red to dry. Today I finished masking and did the inner fenders, brackets and A/C compressor. One last masking session and I did the core support and surrounding area. I left the red and silver to dry overnight because I had to apply tape to the new paint and did not want it to lift. I used Scotch blue tape in those areas and it worked well, only had one small area of red that I had to touch up. I pretty much filled a garbage can with used foil and tape, this would have been a lot easier if I pulled the engine! I'm going to take a couple days off then I'll start putting it all back together, hopefully my radiator will arrive on Monday.

Looking GOOD, Don.

Ben